How to Manage Successful IT Projects

How to Manage Successful IT Projects

1. Set Realistic SchedulesTake risks and uncertainty into account, along with compliance needs, industry standards and organizational culture.

One-fourth of IT projects are outright failures, and another 44% encounter significant difficulties, such as (sing along, you know the words) blown deadlines, overspent budgets, and failure to deliver on key goals. A book called Improving Your Project Management Skills (Amacom/Available now) aims to help you do what the title says. Author Larry Richman is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) with more than three decades’ of experience. His practical guide is packed with tools, tips, charts, lists and other resources to help with planning, budgeting, scheduling, measuring performance, assessing risks and other key project management issues. The underlying lesson of the book is contained in this simple sentence: “The level at which you plan is the level at which you thereafter control” (or as the old adage has it, “Those who fail to plan are planning to fail”). Richman contends that careful thinking up front will reduce pain down the road. For more about the book, click here.